Elves and Dwarves first appeared in 2011. Orcs and Trolls appeared in 2021. From what I understand they appeared because of the rising level of magic, and those races most similar to Homo Sapiens appeared first (an elf being more similar than a troll for example).

I know that Windlings or something very much like them are discussed in brief in the Tir Na Nog book. I also know that in Jack Koke's trilogy we see the first Drake emerging though they suggest that normal drakes won't be around for a while until the magic level is higher.

What about Tskrang? What about Obsidimen? There were also a number of other exotic races from various Earthdawn books that have yet to make an appearance.

Is there any official material showing hints of when these races will return? Failing that have any GMs created rules for these races or addressed their return in your campaigns?

Thanks for the help guys! I am considering having the first Obsidiman be the focus of a series of adventures and wanted to do my homework.

There are some oblique references to things that may be obsidimen in the Siberia section of Shadows of Asia, around Lake Baikal.

one of the changes to shadowrun, since ownership changed from fasa to fanpro, is a moving away from earthdawn. SR is not ED, not anymore.

personaly, i dont want a lot of new weird stuff popping up too fast. the setting is good as it is. UGE and goblinization give us a new kind of racism, that we can explore without offending people with RL racism issues becoming involved. SURGE was a bad idea overall... mostly because it added weird strangeness with no real logic as to why. having the comet produce goblinization and secondary goblinization is good, but catgirls and weird things are not.

the 'exotic races' is probably a non-human sentient, and most of those are not recognized as 'people'. as such, they are not good as choices for PC races.

I must protest.

Catgirls are always a good thing.

And remember, Shadowrunners are by default not people and not good choices for PCs. They are after all hunted outlaws.

This reminds me...I've got no experience with Earthdawn, so maybe you guys can answer this. Is the ork/troll lifespan thing a biological issue, or is it due to lifestyle choices? Basically, I'm wondering what their lifespan is like in Earthdawn.

Those of you interested in the whole ED/SR stuff might be interested in this thread, particularly the comments from James Flowers.

And no, I don't know anything about it. But I'm curious what he means.

The ED links are fun for those who like to follow that stuff, but these days will likely never reach a point where someone who doesn't know anything about ED feels like they are missing out on Shadowrun material. All the references in SoA are usable on their own as something completely seperate from ED, though oldtimers who want to play the ED angle can do that too.

What would the stats of catgirls be? +2 to charisma? +infinity to all social tests with anime-otaku?

Platinum:orks and trolls had short life spans in ED as well. Orks live to be about 60 max IIRC, but their lifestlye ususally cuts a good 20 years off. The worid thing is that people the UGE'd (used to be human) have longer life spans. According to Steve Kenson at least.

Also , there is one example of a human that apparently SURGEd in to an obsidiman.

Oh, and obsidimen didn't really go in for the whole 'city' thing.

yeah, most orks died by the time they were in their 40s. But the Denizens of Barsaive book (V2) has an ork chica that's in her early 60's (and she hits on the elven scholar interviewing her. good stuff).

The good part is that in ED, you don't have to worry about diapers. They don't exist! So just crap your pants and smile. The smell makes your more fearsome.

Sure. Dwarves fit into a normal-sized car and an ork not. Or can use normal-sized chairs and tables. Or toilets.

Dwarves use toilets? o_O

They had at least the possibility when they climb onto a normal-sized one

Hey, dwarves even fit into normal toilets...

FanPro fully intends to pursue the ED link as it has done in the recent past (that is indirectly at best and nothing like the tail end of the FASA period), but with the development focus for the next couple of years I can definitely say that you won't be seeing anything similar to say Shadows of Asia and you definitely won't be seeing windlings appear as viable PC types.

Now John, hindsight is 20/20. I can just see swarms of ganger pixies roving the streets armed with cigarette missile launchers. They run Dust along the cost from the Pixie Nation in the North to Seattle, where it's sold for a huge profit. The Mayor turns a blind eye because they blackmailed him with video of his carnivorous chomping on faire meat...

Unless they're trying to seduce anime otaku... those dice pool modifiers are INSANE.